text: The lunar crater Rayleigh as well as the Martian crater Rayleigh were named in his honour. The asteroid 22740 Rayleigh was named after him on 1 June 2007. A type of surface waves are known as Rayleigh waves, and the elastic scattering of electromagnetic waves is called Rayleigh scattering. The rayl, a unit of specific acoustic impedance, is also named for him. Rayleigh was also awarded with (in chronological order):
  * Smith's Prize (1864)
  * Royal Medal (1882)
  *Member of the American Philosophical Society (1886)
  * Matteucci Medal (1894)
  * Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1897)
  * Copley Medal (1899)
  * Nobel Prize in Physics (1904)
  * Elliott Cresson Medal (1913)
  * Rumford Medal (1914)
  Lord Rayleigh was among the original recipients of the Order of Merit (OM) in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902, and received the order from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 8 August 1902.
  He received the degree of Doctor mathematicae (honoris causa) from the Royal Frederick University on 6 September 1902, when they celebrated the centennial of the birth of mathematician Niels Henrik Abel.
  Sir William Ramsay, his co-worker in the investigation to discover argon described Rayleigh as "the greatest man alive" while speaking to Lady Ramsay during his last illness.
  H. M. Hyndman said of Rayleigh that "no man ever showed less consciousness of great genius".